It is known to provide large-volume containers in which an outer support structure of cage-like construction composed, for example, of a gridwork of round-steel bars or wire, serves to support a flexible-wall inner container of a plastic material. The inner container, when filled with a flowable material, is braced against at least one lateral wall formed by the support structure and rests upon a bottom of the outer support. The gridwork, as noted, can be composed of round-steel bar and/or wire, both of which may be collectively referred to as bars hereinafter, and formed or strengthened by hot or cold-shaping processes including drawing or rolling.
In the gridwork structure, the bars cross one another and are welded together at their crossing points.
In general, in earlier constructions, the upper part of the lateral support was generally fitted with a frame to which the bars of the gridwork could be welded and which can be constituted of steel profile, i.e. steel structural shapes of a variety of cross sections.
In the prior art transport and/or storage container of the aforedescribed type and over which the present invention is an improvement, the bottom of the container was a separate structure. For example, it could be formed by the upper surface of a pallet of wood or sheet metal which could be connected to the outer cage structure in some special way.
The term "pallet" is used herein to refer to a structure which enables the transport and/or storage container to be handled, i.e. moved about, by the fork of a forklift truck or the like. Using such a forklift vehicle, of course, the palletized container can be lifted onto a truck, lifted off a truck, stacked or simply moved about on a support surface in a particularly convenient manner.
In all of these earlier systems, the bottom of the container was formed by a foreign body which, although connected with the outer cage structure, nevertheless had a reduced form stability.
For example, when the bottom was a wood pallet structure, deterioration thereof in normal handling of the transport and storage container could not be avoided. By and large, therefore, the bottoms of earlier containers had a much shorter useful life than the gridworks of the outer structures to which those bottoms were connected and which were composed of steel bars or the like.